Summary
Story Seventeen year old Shinichi Kudo (Jimmy Kudo in English version) was a high school detective who worked with the police to solve mysteries. One day, while going to an amusement park with childhood friend/love interest Ran Mouri (Rachel Moore in English version) to celebrate her winning a karate tournament, Shinichi and Ran encounter a murder on the roller coaster they board. The suspects are the two people in the front, the suspect's girlfriend, and two shady men in black that sat in the back. Shinichi solves the case, and escorts a now teary Ran away from the scene of the crime. He then notices one of the two men clad in black from the roller coaster case run behind a building into the dark, so Shinichi follows him in pursuit, telling Ran he'll return back later. Ran gets a strange feeling, as though Shinichi will not return, but she does not know why she feels this way. Shinichi witnesses the man in black and what appears to be a company manager trade a suitcase filled with money for a tape showing the company manager smuggling in some "naughty things". Just then, the other man in black sneaks up behind Shinichi and knocks him out, just as the company manager is running away with the tape. The men decide shooting him is too risky, since the place was filled with cops due to the roller coaster murder, so one of the men in black takes out a case of pills, and says to the other it's a new poison that hasn't been tried out on humans yet, that is undetectable in autopsies. The man puts the pill and some water down Shinichi's throat, and the two men run off. Shinichi feels a burning feeling in him, as though he's melting... but wakes up a few minutes later to find two cops standing over him, asking, "Are you all right, little boy?" Shinichi runs away from the cops, only to discover he's shrunk to the size of a little boy. He runs to his neighbor, Dr. Hiroshi Agasa (Dr. Herschel Agasa in the English version), and proves to him he is indeed Shinichi. Dr. Agasa takes Shinichi into his house, to which Shinichi explains exactly what happened. Dr. Agasa warns Shinichi not to tell anybody, in fear that the men in Black might come back and kill him and anyone who knows his secret. Just then, Ran walks in, saying she's concerned because Shinichi left her and hasn't returned or answered any of her calls. Shinichi runs behind a desk in his library, finds a pair of his father's glasses, and puts them on, only to find out how strong they are, and thus bangs into the desk. Ran walks over just as Shinichi pops the powerful lenses out of the glasses, but fortunately does not realize the little boy is Shinichi. She asks for his name to which he replies "Conan Edogawa", a name he came up with when he noticed two books on a shelf next to him with the authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Rampo Edogawa. Dr. Agasa comes up with an idea, and asks Ran if she can take "Conan" into her house because his house is too dangerous for a child, and his parents are not available. Ran agrees, and takes Conan to her house, where she lives with her father Kogoro Mouri (Richard Moore in the English version). Now, Shinichi must find a way to solve cases while being in the body of a child, find an antidote to the drug that shrunk him, and stop the syndicate from doing their evil deeds while keeping his true identity a secret so the people he loves won't get hurt! Background The series Detective Conan (名探偵 コナン, Meitantei Conan) was created by Japanese mangaka Gosho Aoyama in 1994 to the Japanese manga and anime magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday(週刊少年サンデー, Shūkan Shōnen Sandē). The manga was later published by the company Shogakukan (小学館, Shōgakukan) in multiple volumes, each containing chapters released in Shōnen Sunday. On January 8, 1996, the series was adapted into an anime, which was produced by TMS Entertainment (株式会社トムス　エンタテインメント, Kabushiki-gaisha Tomusu Entateinmento) and Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation (讀賣テレビ放送株式会社, Yomiuri Terebi Hōsō Kabushiki Gaisha), or YTV. The series was shown on the networks NNS and Animax. The anime series also inspired Original Video Animations (OVA s), movies, video games, trading cards, CDs, and merchandise, including dolls, figurines, posters, calenders, and DVD s. The first movie, "The Time Bombed Skyscraper", was released April 17, 1997, and the series has continued releasing movies every year in April. The series has been released in many languages over the years, and has become popular world wide, but one of the more notable language releases of the series was the English version released by Viz Media, a manga company in San Francisco, California. The series was having legal trouble due to the name, so the company renamed the series "Case Closed" and renamed the main characters of the story. The anime series was also brought to English, by the American anime company Funimation. The title and the main character names were also changed due to the legal trouble. The series was shown on adult swim, a program shown late at night on Cartoon Network targeted for teenagers and adults, from May 24, 2004 until January 2005, but was then discontinued due to the poor ratings it recieved. As of now, six movies and five seasons, a total of 130 episodes, have been released by Funimation, and, as of July 2010, thirty-five manga volumes have been released by Viz Media. In America, the series was not well recieved, but in Japan, the series had been very successful, with lots of merchandise sold and lots of awards recieved for both the series and the movies.